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Out of line?

Sorry, but it wasn't me who deleted a template used by about 70 users without warning any of them beforehand. This is what I consider "out of line" behavior.  Grue  07:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

T1 is strictly within policy. Being incivil isn't. --Cyde Weys 07:08, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and the civil way of deleting a template is to subst all of its instances on the affected pages. This is why I am so unsatisfied with how you handled this deletion.  Grue  09:06, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I double Grue's comment, but you probably know that already. Misza13 ^{T C} 10:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay guys, I'm more than happy to start substituting templates before deleting them, and I'd appreciate your support here Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals#Userboxbot, as that is the only realistic way userboxen are going to be substituted before deletion - I'm sure as hell not going to do it manually. --Cyde Weys 16:15, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, since I've been thinking about a similar movement for some days now, I'd appreciate it if you took a look at User:Misza13/Userbox Gallery Poll (page name may change). Something similar to your idea, but I believe any massive action regarding userboxes should be backed by a policy. I intended to show it some more forgiving people before posting it publicly to avoid the risk of being ridiculed outright, but heck. Misza13 ^{T C} 16:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Obviously being backed by policy is a good thing. Unfortunately, the last few polls were killed by a combination of vote-stacking and people who absolutely refused to compromise one little bit. Hopefully this one will go differently. I'm going to hold off on using Userboxbot en masse until we've at least tried to figure out a policy. --Cyde Weys 16:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand this exemption: Userboxes expressing interests/hobbies/fields of expertise. Those are still entirely non-encyclopedic, and if people want, they can use code for that or just put it in plain text on their page (probably preferable anyway). --Cyde Weys 16:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

They might not be encyclopedic, but serve a use to the Project by organising Wikipedians by interests. Opposed to political ones which encourage factionalism and provide means for vote stacking, these may help in finding people interested in/experts on a particular topic and improving some content. (I thought it's pretty obvious.) Misza13 ^{T C} 17:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

We can at least start with the religion/politics/belief ones and then branch out later if we need to .. --Cyde Weys 17:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

As you see, I would suport an official policy dooming the r/p/b boxes. But still, I think it should be backed by a policy, so as to get rid of WP:DRV/U once and for all (any appeals there would simply be invalid - wouldn't it save much time?). The idea of a Gallery is actually an addition to help the less techy/creative people - that's why my project may as well be renamed. Misza13 ^{T C} 17:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

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You may have seen this already, but I found this accidentally at User talk:Cyde Weys while trying to find your page. If you have seen this already, feel free to delete it. Ral315 (talk) 18:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

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Re: Cabal summons

I would like to be able to, but I can't seem to access to the admins channel. --LBMixPro^{<Speak|on|it!>} 01:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. I made it in. But you weren't there. --LBMixPro^{<Speak|on|it!>} 01:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Metamagician3000's candidacy for admin

User:Metamagician3000 now has email accessible.--Jusjih 14:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Phillips Exeter changes

Hi, sorry, but your changes aren't working. Instead of going to a general list of PEA alumni, all the links just go to the old 1959 list of alumni that I had started with 3 or 4 names on it. So all you've done is just rename the 1959 list.... Hayford Peirce 18:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I really don't know what you're talking about? Can you provide some links to diffs for context? --Cyde Weys 19:48, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Sure. If you go here, you'll see that something called cydebot has been making minor changes. I clicked on cydebot and that eventually led me to this page.... Hayford Peirce 20:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phillips_Exeter_Academy&action=history

Blended wing spacecraft

I've seen all of Planetes (twice!) and I'm rather familiar with NASA, so I feel qualified to comment on this ... NASA sure as hell didn't lift the design for the blended wing spacecraft from an anime. Designs of that nature have been kicking around for decades. If anything, Planetes used the real-life prototypes as a model for their vision of what spacecraft might look like in the future. If you watch the extras discs on the special edition DVDs you'll see that they conducted various interviews with NASA to make sure they got all of their science right. So Planetes took the design from NASA, not the other way around. --Cyde Weys 20:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

That is of course true. Creating an aircraft design is a delicate, tiring process requiring lots of hard work and donuts. NASA of course didn't steal the designs.

I am only fascinated that something thats seen on the show has a very good chance of becoming an actual ship. It is an exciting era, isnt it?

--Cat out 20:15, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher requests unblocking

Hi, Cyde, User:Timothy Usher has been blocked on what appears to be a rather flimsy pretext. Can you look into the matter? He has requested an unblock. Thanks, Pecher ^Talk 21:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:BITE

As you removed what you deemed "nonsense," as I was just about to do the same thing. The difference is that my edit summary was going to inform Hector-mo- that the templates' names had been mistyped (which is why Hector-mo- mistakenly believed that they were deleted, despite the fact that they seemingly never existed). This was quite easy to determine by simply examining Hector-mo-'s contribution history. Please try not to bite the newbies. —David Levy 04:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I was just about to explain the misunderstanding to Hector-mo-, but I see that you went ahead and deleted the actual templates (despite the fact that you'd already removed their premature deletion review). Does that seem appropriate to you? —David Levy 04:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

You missed all the fun, please come to #wikipedia-en-admins on FreeNode where we are currently discussing this. --Cyde Weys 04:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

But to make a long story short, yes, it was entirely appropriate. Along comes a "newbie" who makes two edits to articles which are borderline vandalism and then immediately goes ahead to put two pieces of nonsense into Template: namespace. And then somehow he knows about WP:DRVU and files a disruptive request there. He's lucky he's getting away with 24 hours. I'm sick and tired of people thinking they're somehow entitled to put whatever nonsense they want in namespaces, so long as those namespaces aren't the main namespace. Well guess what, that's simply not true. Wikipedia is not a free webhost and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Somehow this user comes along with an entirely false notion of what Wikipedia actually is, and I can't help but think that he got it from this MySpacing userbox culture. He seems to think it's a place where you can just post random crap, and then you get to argue over random crap. We shouldn't have to put up with this. I'm not putting up with it. --Cyde Weys 04:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

See also Hector-mo-bot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) --Rory096 05:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what this user is here to do, but all indications point to "not here to help write the encyclopedia". --Cyde Weys 05:17, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I have reviewed the situation, and I don't know what to think. I've seen this type of behavior from trolls, but I also have seen it from a well-meaning user who happened to be autistic. I'm inclined to give this person the benefit of the doubt (for the time being), but I can understand why someone else would respond differently.

I share your concern regarding the deterioration of the template and category namespaces, but I don't believe that it's appropriate to snap at newbies who mistake the site for a social community. Some of them have the potential to become good contributors, but not if we greet them with torches and pitchforks. This particular user might be nothing more than a troll, but I prefer to err on the side of caution. —David Levy 20:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

AWB

My edit did NOT only affect whitespace - it also unicodified several other sections of the page, which you can see by scrolling further down the diff. Cynical 07:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Planetes

You have just volunteered to expand the anime article :) --Cat out 10:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll do what I can. --Cyde Weys 15:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rationales to impeach George W. Bush (2nd nomination)

You are invited to vote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rationales to impeach George W. Bush (2nd nomination). The issue of the name has not been resolved and therefore people are now recruiting others to delete. Feel free to make your judgement known, thank you. Nomen Nescio 21:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Clyde, I don't know how you decided to close that AfD so fast or how you failed to tally that there was clearly consensus to delete. But, since you have injected yourself into this debacle, why don't you now rename the article? Please answer on my talk page ASAP. Thanks. Merecat 22:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I find your lack of faith... disturbing.

Indulge. :)

Dear Cyde/Archive005,

Thanks for voting on my RFA! I appreciate your comments and constructive criticism, for every bit helps me become a better Wikipedian. I've started working on the things you brought up, and I hope that next time, things run better; who knows, maybe one day we'll be basking on the shore of Admintopia together. Thanks and cheers, _-M o P-_ 22:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The Bush article

You may be coming here because I closed the AfD on the article about rationales for the impeachment of George W. Bush proposed by the impeachment movement with a result of Rename. Here is my reasoning:

• This entire AfD was a huge mess of vote-stacking, recruiting, flaming, pointless argumentation, sockpuppetry, and meatpuppetry. Nothing productive was going to be accomplished.
• Just because the subject of an article may be POV (e.g. Pro-life) doesn't mean that we shouldn't have an article on it.
• The movement to impeach GWB is notable.
• The main article on this movement was already way too big to include these rationales, so they needed a subpage.
• The previous name of the subpage was POV.

Additionally, I have blocked two users for 24 hours for POV vote-stacking on this issue and I will gladly block any more that are pointed out to me that I may have missed. This is not accepetable. --Cyde Weys 22:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I haven't counted the votes and compared w/contribs, looked for socks, etc, but a great many of the votes were cast for delete on the grounds of WP:NOT a soapbox and NOT your blog.

• The movement to impeach GWB would be notable, if there was one. Unfortunately, there isn't a real movement, at least in the US. The blogosphere does not a mass movement make.
• People appeared to be gradually moving from a majority of Delete votes to consensus on merging the good information from the article to where it belongs. Just renaming the article is only a cosmetic change.

Thank you for your consideration. MilesVorkosigan 23:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. If you look at Rationales for impeaching George W. Bush, every heading has one or more "main articles" linked to refer to. So one would progress from Movement to impeach George W. Bush (bulleted list of topics) to Rationales for impeaching George W. Bush (one or two paragraphs) to the main, in-depth articles. All this article accomplishes is to add a layer of indirection and an opportunity for POV. Even given that there's verifiable, non-POV information in this article, the question of whether it should be collected in this page rather than in the main articles is, I respectfully submit, still one worth debating. Choess 01:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

By all objective measurements there does exist a very real impeachment movement and it is notable. It's even covered in the news fairly often by various pundits (either pro- or con-). The article does need improvements. Changing the name is just a beginning. But I don't think that Afd is an acceptable way to deal with POV issues. --Cyde Weys 23:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, gotcha. My meterstick for a notable impeachment movement was 'is there any chance that someone in Congress might actually start impeachment proceedings (ever).' I guess that is a bit of a high bar. And yes, I know AFD isn't for POV problems, that's why I was mentioning the concern of a majority of the posters to the AFD about WP:NOT. MilesVorkosigan 23:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, impeachment proceedings have already started in some states and cities, so I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to say, in the next three years, that it may spread to Congress too. --Cyde Weys 23:17, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Then we really are talking about different things. My understanding is that impeachment of a president takes place only in the legislative branch of the federal government. Not so? (Not intended as an argument, by the way, I'm curious) MilesVorkosigan 23:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

You need to go back and read the Constitution again :-) Impeachment can occur with either a simple majority in the House and a 2/3rds majority of the Senate or a 3/4ths majority of State Legislatures (I believe). --Cyde Weys 23:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Hrrrrmmm, is that right .... ? --Cyde Weys 23:27, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

14.114 Impeachment proceedings have been initiated by the introduction of a resolution by a member, by a letter or message from the President, by a grand jury action forwarded to the House from a Territorial legislature, by a memorial setting forth charges, by a resolution authorizing a general investigation, and by a resolution reported by the House Judiciary Committee. [1]

See bolded selection. A territorial legislature is a state legislature. --waffle iron ^talk 23:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

A territorial legislature is not a state legislature hence the difference in terminology. --Strothra 23:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I see your Constitutional reference and raise you a citation and a Wikipedia article! Article 1, Section 3, the Senate has the sole power to impeach the president. States can also impeach, but that's for judges, etc. MilesVorkosigan 23:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

No. In a Federalist system such as the United States there must be a clear separation between not only branches of Federal government but between State and Federal government. The matter of the President is a federal one. The legislative branch is the only institution capable of impeaching the president, for it's also the branch which launches and runs the entire hearing process associated with it. There is no such institution among states because the body which connects the states is the federal government (back to why impeachment is a federal process). I think that you are referring to the process by which amendments may be made to the federal constitution. Those do not need the legistlature but can be created by consensus among states. States have only a very limited power over the Federal government in that they are given certain authority to check its power which is why a representative legislature exists in the first place. The legislature is how states get to have their say in processes such as impeachment. --Strothra 23:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks like some ppl got there before me. --Strothra 23:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Do we have any constitutional scholars in attendance? I do recall that state legislatures can directly bypass the Federal system in passing constitutional amendments. Hell, if they can amend the constitution, they could easily pass an amendment to let them impeach the president :-D Cyde Weys 00:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Technically they do not "bypass" the federal system by passing ammendments. The reason why that clause exists in the constitution is due to the englightentment belief in the creation of laws by consensus. Impeachments do not create laws, they are a federal matter. Ammendments are not just a federal matter because the states agreed to enter into a union sealed by the constitution. The states have the ability to ban together to adjust that constitution through concensus directly or through due process of the legislature. Allowing states to directly impeach the president would be a grave power of the states over the federal government. That is precisely why the first government of the United States failed. Powers were then put into place to protect the federal government and give it superior powers over the states. Allowing the states to touch the supreme executive by any means other than the legislature would endager that process. I would reccommend you picking up a copy of The Federalist Papers authored by Alexander Hamiliton and James Madison. It explains the American Federalist system in great detail which is very difficult to simplify in a short space.

Also, it should be noted that the way by which states may ammend the constitution is by establishing a Constitutional Convention. This has never been done and is extremely difficult to do because the size of the country leads to a diversity of pluralistic beliefs. Concensus is nearly impossible in the United States.

--Strothra 00:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Cyde is almost certainly thinking of the constitutional amendment process, which contains a provision that 2/3 of the States can call a constitutional convention to propose amendments, which must then pass 3/4 of the states (this is off the top of my head, and I'm Canadian to boot, so I may have those backwards). None of the actual amendments have gone through this process - they've all followed the other method of being proposed and passed in Congress, and sent to the states for ratification. David Oberst 00:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

You nailed it. --Cyde Weys 00:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Precisely what I said in my origional post: I think that you are referring to the process by which amendments may be made to the federal constitution. That's typically something they teach in a grade school civics course in the states and in liberal arts government courses at public universities. --Strothra 01:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Cyde is right in that the states could, theoretically, pass an amendment to the constitution granting the power to impeach the president to anyone. Hurray for the 'living document'.  :) Of course, the US's current Supreme Court would probably decide that the government could stop them by use of the interstate commerce clause. MilesVorkosigan 16:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

On that matter

I'm not trying to take sides here (I didn't even vote). However, I'm fairly sure that it's not exactly commonplace to close a heavily contested AFD after just twenty-four hours. (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rationales_to_impeach_George_W._Bush_(2nd_nomination)). Many, many users and admins voted there (oops, I mean "gave reasons in an effort to reach consensus", of course ) both for keeping and for deletion, and I have a feeling that many of them have as good a grasp of AFD policy as you (and decided that a "keep" or "delete" was more appropriate than speedying the discussion)... so could you explain why you felt it justified to shut down the AFD? (Again, I didn't vote on it, and didn't even analyze the issue that closely--I'd gotten a spammed notification, and found much to my surprise that it had been closed before I'd even had a chance to think about how to vot--oops, there I go again.) Thanks... and happy editing! Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 22:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

That discussion was contaminated. If they want to try a third one they're welcome to, but I'm going to watch it very closely for vote-stacking. AfD isn't about how many people you can recruit, it's about the merits of the article. Also, the POV name of the article was throwing some people off, so I rectified that too. --Cyde Weys 22:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

It might have been better to move this discussion to the talk page of the AfD. Having the discussion here implies you 'own' the dispute and it might open you up to unjust attack. Just a thought. --waffle iron ^talk 23:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

In hindsight that's a good idea, but I didn't even think about the talk page of the Afd. The main page already is the discussion page, you don't regularly think of it having a talk page as well :-P Cyde Weys 23:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

As I see it, there was no valid reason to close down that AfD so fast. What I saw there was consensus to delete, with keep and merge tied for 2nd. Rename was in 3rd place and was not the consensus at that page. Merecat 23:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Cyde, I'm concerned about you closing the AfD and also about your block of User:Morton devonshire. There is no policy against notifying people of a listing on AfD. There is not even a policy against asking them to support a certain position on an AfD. Johntex\^talk 23:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

We've definitely blocked people for talk page spamming and vote-stacking before. If it's not written into the policy yet, it should be. We can't let people game our consensus system like this. --Cyde Weys 23:50, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

"We've done it before" is not a good reason. There is no policy that supports this early AfD closure or the block of User:Morton devonshire. The same applies to your blocking of User:Nescio. I view these as out-of-process blocks and I request that you unblock them. Johntex\^talk 23:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey, Cyde

I was the AfD nominator for the article for Rationales to Impeach George W. Bush. Even though I nominated the article for deletion, it was clear that there was not consensus to keep or delete. I've only been on Wikipedia since December 2005, but I'm under the impression you cannot delete an article without consensus but nominating an article again is in good faith (as opposed to when there is consensus to keep). Correct me if I'm wrong here.

I wasn't aware of vote stacking until I read your talk page, actually. I did see there were anons commenting, but that is wholly within policy. At any rate, I believe your decision was the right decision on the matter. It was a middle ground that appeased some of the keeps as well as potentially some of the deletes. Not everybody is happy of course, but Wikipedia is based upon consensus and compromise. Regardless of what I think of certain editors personally, the decision to keep or delete has to be made on the merits of the article. I believe that the majority of voters did make their decisions on that basis.

One question I have for you is that would it be proper for me to nominate this article for deletion review even though I believe that you made the right decision (as far as determining consensus), but I do believe that not everybody believes you made the right decision in determining consensus. BlueGoose 23:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review is almost exclusively used for undeleting things that have been deleted improperly, not for trying to get something deleted again. Generally people just open another Afd for that. And, for what it's worth, you could have just been bold and moved the page to a better name originally; you certainly don't need to bring it to Afd for that. --Cyde Weys 23:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, I didn't think of the idea of moving the article until after I read Boud's comments. Nor did I expect that this AfD would cause this much of a firestorm. As the debate progressed, it was just clear that there were people passionate on the issue on both sides. BlueGoose 23:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Alright, no problem. And you should know better than to think it wouldn't cause a firestorm :-P Off the top of my head I can't think of anything more controversial than this administration. Editors are people too, and many, many people have very strong opinions on these issues. --Cyde Weys 00:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

First, Kudos to you, Cyde for making a bold and correct move to stifle unproductive name-calling and bickering.

Second, in my experience, people are very territorial and will adamantly resist efforts to move articles. AfD is a good way kick people in the ass and establish a mandate for page renaming. --Mmx1 00:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Sent to deletion review

Deletion policy states that deletion review "...also considers disputed decisions made in deletion-related fora." I consider your early closure of the AfD to be out of process, and I dispute your closure action. Therefore, I have listed the matter at deletion review. Johntex\^talk 00:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• User:Merecat is a third user you have now unjustly blocked. What is outrageous is that you continue to throw blocks at people who are disagreeing with you. Again, there is no policy against posting messages asking people to come share their views on a topic. I request you unblock Merecat immediately. Johntex\^talk 00:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
  • This has nothing to do with users I disagree with (I don't even know Merecat's stance on any issues) and everything to do with votestacking. That there are people trying to allow this is absurd. --Cyde Weys 01:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Clearly you disagree with his encouraging people to speak on the issue. I don't even see where he is taking on side or the other. You have blocked him just for notifying people about an issue. This is completely unfair. Johntex\^talk 01:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

See here. The ArbCom frowns on vote-stacking and talk-page spamming. --Cyde Weys 01:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Please see here for proof there is no policy against what these people are doing. You are not the ArbCom. I repeat my request you unblock these users or cite a specific policy that they have violated. Johntex\^talk 01:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The specific policy I am citing is disruption. See the SIP RFAr where the ArbCom confirmed that vote-stacking and talk page spamming is disruptive. Users can be blocked for disruption (SIP was). --Cyde Weys 01:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Also see this RFAr where the ArbCom noted that StrangerInParadise was being disruptive in using a What links here feature to spam people to come vote (and SIP was blocked for that too). --Cyde Weys 01:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• Again, you are not the ArbCom. You are not the community either. The community has set no policy that would justify your action. Johntex\^talk 01:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• SIP RFAr? What diff is that please? Johntex\^talk 01:07, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you misread it. If I am looking at the right thing (which is hardly quaranteed since your link is not very specific), ArbCom said:

On March 4, StrangerInParadise used the Special:Whatlinkshere feature to contact 43 users with a certain userbox. He spammed them with a deliberately provocative attempt to stack the ongoing userbox policy poll [31]. The messages, headed "Your userpage was briefly delisted by a rogue admin" constitute personal attacks [32]. StrangerInParadise was subsequently blocked.

It seems to me what was disruptive was making a personal attack by claiming someone was a "rogue admin". Arbcom did not say there is a policy against using the Special:Whatlinkshere feature to find people to notify. Johntex\^talk 01:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Quoting "He spammed them with a deliberately provocative attempt to stack..." That's identical to what happened here. Describing an entry as a not much better than a blog is almost identical in provocation level. JoshuaZ 01:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I must say, I think you're on quite a roll -- an RfC and now people screaming for your head all in one month ;) Seriously though, vote-stacking is disruption and there are a number of ArbCom precidents which deal with that type of disruption and the meat puppet route (used by wikipedians not well versed enough in the system to check what links here :P). Some people will just never understand that consensus doesn't mean gathering opinions from everyone who agrees with you -- keep up the good work! .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 01:35, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. I'm not one to step down from doing what is right just because I may run into some opposition. --Cyde Weys 01:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I find it unfortunate you call what you did "doing what is right".

Deletion Policy states "If a clear consensus for non-deletion is quickly reached, discussion may be closed before the end of the typical period, for example, a clear consensus for speedy deletion, a clear consensus for a speedy keep, or a consensus for a redirect. The debate should remain transcluded on the appropriate deletion page. If the proposed solution has not achieved a very clear consensus, the listing should remain for the full five-day period. Any substantial debate, regardless of how lopsided the keep/delete count may be, implies that an early closing would be a bad idea. [2] (emphasis mine) Clearly, discussion was ongoing and the AfD should not have been closed. Johntex\^talk 03:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Closing and protecting the Bush impeachment AfD

Why in the world did you take it upon yourself to close an AfD less than two days old? And then you protect it? And on top of that, you decide an article should be kept that had more than 2/3 vote for deletion? I have reopened the AfD for discussion. -- Cecropia 03:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Have you not seen WP:ANI? You don't seem to be acting on all of the facts. I urge you to reconsider. --Cyde Weys 03:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, you will have to be more specific, as I don't know where on that long page the point you wish me to consider is. -- Cecropia 03:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm specifically referencing all of the stuff on vote-stacking. At this point a new Afd should be opened that is watched very carefully so that it is legitimate. The previous one is contaminated by evil. --Cyde Weys 04:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

LOL! EVIL = Every Voter I  Loath. ;-) -- Cecropia 17:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I like that, I really do. Though to be perfectly honest, up until my involvement yesterday, I wasn't really involved in this dispute at at all. I think I do vaguely recall voting in the previous Afd, but I don't remember tracking it and seeing how it ended, and I sure as hell don't remember any interactions involving all of these various people. So it's really a stretch to say I loath them :-p Cyde Weys 17:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Logging In

Cyde, you are wrong. Logging in has never been required for participation in DRV. If you wish to change that policy, go ahead and try. --70.213.229.55 04:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Logging in has always been required. Otherwise anyone on a dynamic IP address could just get hundreds of votes. That's ludicrous. --Cyde Weys 04:35, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

As noted elsewhere - this is not about votes. It is about proper procedure. Please stop your foolishness. --70.213.229.55 04:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Logging in is not required but the individual's vote will most likely not count. --Strothra 04:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Not just "most likely not count", it won't count. We've had some pretty bad sockpuppetry problems at WP:DRVU (multiple CheckUser bannings) and we sure as hell aren't going to allow an anon to vote, which is just throwing the door to sockpuppetry wide open. If the anon wants to have a say, that's fine, but phrasing his comment in the syntax of a vote with bolded "Undelete" is just very confusing, and something that the closing admin could possibly glance over without even realizing it wasn't proper. Hence why it's being kept out. --Cyde Weys 04:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware of that. I would think that an admin, however, would be better with words and not state that logging in was required for participation when it clearly is not required. That risks confusing users. --Strothra 05:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the comments of users on a DRV for which you are the nominator can also be seen as a misuse of admin rights. --?!? 05:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the comments of users on a DRV and protecting the DRV page is most likely an abuse of admin priviledges. Disagreement is not disruption. --PunkChicken 05:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not an abuse of admin rights. The only thing you're doing is trolling and being disruptive for the sake of disruptiveness. Everyone can see this obvious and plain fact. And now you're using a sockpuppet to evade a block. That's a very bad thing. --Cyde Weys 05:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

My apologies, but perhaps you can trace this back to your immediate reversion of comments in violation of common sense and policy? And a block without any rational justification? Just a thought. Blocking a user for simply disagreeing with you is sad. --PunkChicken 05:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

AfD

I suggest that you complaining about "vote stacking" on the Bush impeachment AfD. For those of us who do not follow AfD reguarly, we appreciate those notes. Users regularly inform other users of debates if it is in a topic they think is in their area of interest. I received a note from Merecat, and that note was not act of vote-stacking. Merecat did not spam me, he sought my opinion, as he probably knows I am a longtime Wikipedia editor and historian who takes NPOV standards seriously. He probably knows that I have a different political orientation (I vote Democratic) and will not vote a certain way because it would suit his POV. Your attacks on Merecat for "vote stacking" are unfair, and especially troubling in light of your abuse of administrative powers to close the vote after only 27 hours. 172 | Talk 08:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Merecat was solely contacting people he knew had a history of voting delete on this article. That is vote-stacking, plain and simple. --Cyde Weys 17:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

No. Merecat contacted me asking for my opinion having no idea how I'd vote. Confirming by looking at my user history, I voted minutes before he'd contacted me. When contacting me, he hadn't noticed my vote. (He contacted me about the vote, not realizing I'd already voted. With realizing how I had voted, he had no reason to make any assumptions about my leaning one way or the other.) You're a good editor; so I can disregard the mistake you made when closing the second vote. Still, frankly, I think you owe Merecat and apology. It is fine to talk to people. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia built by a community. We as editors are supposed to talk with each other. That's why there are talk pages, after all. 172 | Talk 03:54, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

For all of your userbox work, I present you this Template Barnstar in the form of a userbox! ~Linuxerist E/L/T 11:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Reference Converter

Hello Cyde, I tried your reference converter tool for the first time today on Baby Gender Mentor. Your tool seemed to work beautifully! Thanks for creating it and to anyone else involved if you had any help. This is definitely a job well done, thanks. Johntex\^talk 16:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Cydebot

Hi Cyde,

Cydebot was used for two mass-cfru renamings a few days ago at CFD (here and here). It did its job of creating new categories, deleting old categories, and moving articles succesfully, but it unfortunately did not remove the "This category is being considered for renaming in accordance with Wikipedia's Categories for Deletion policies" notice from the newly created categories. Please see Category:Youth wings of political parties in Afghanistan or Category:Aircraft manufacturers of Argentina to see what I mean. This notice is now not needed, as the cfru passed succesfully. Could the bot please be run through these categories again to remove the notice? Thanks very much, I appreciate your help. Kurieeto 18:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying me. I just coded up another metabot that does exactly this and Cydebot (talk · contribs) is already at work! If you're interested, here's the code for the metabot:

#!/usr/bin/perl

#This metabot removes {{cfr}}, {{cfru}}, and {{cfr-speedy}} notices from a list of category pages.
#This program takes as input any number of lines (copied from Wiki source) that contain categories.
#For example, the input could be hundreds of lines in the following format:
#  * [[:Category:Argentine aircraft manufacturers]] to [[:Category:Aircraft manufacturers of Argentina]] or [[:Category:Aircraft manufacturing companies of Argentina]]
#Or really, just any Wiki source that contains [[:Category:xxxx]] links.
#Be sure to save the input text to a file first and then redirect it to this program's stdin.

my $totalStr = "";
my $finalOut = "";
while (<STDIN>) {
    $totalStr .= $_ . "\n";
}

#print $totalStr . "\n";

my @categories = ($totalStr =~ m/\[\[\:(Category\:[^\[\]]*?)\]\]/gi);

foreach (@categories) {
    $finalOut .= "-page:\"$_\" ";
}

print "Beginning execution now.\n";
system("python template.py -remove -extras -always cfr cfru cfr-speedy -summary:\"Removing Cfd notices from surviving categories.\" $finalOut");

Cyde Weys 22:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

hey there cyde.

since YOU request it, i'll take the rest of the day off.

My original plan was to impeach every person that voted to delete with a reason that demonstrated they hadn't even read the article.

I have poured my brand of fire and brimstone, and been pretty gentle about it, i think, considering whats going on.

maybe by tomorrow, we can have >>who has what agenda<< figured out well enough that you will have a team "mentor" to hang with, and follow the lead of, and chat with. Nescio has been snubbing me. Probably because i come on like a dragon and don't let go. That might solve both of our main problems right there. Until then, the real problem here is that nobody answered our plea for help over abuse, and now, a mob has been constructed to have a republican book burning.

You were right to close the second afd the first time, and any fair review of this process would beforced to conclude that the side that cheated at that moment blew its claim to consensus process, and lost its right thereby to have a vfd. By the way, i like these little tags that strotha gets to place on me after he attacks me and i defend myself. Where were those tags when blue goose accused nescio of a bad faith rfc at the opening of the second vfd?

Systemic bias. It ain't pretty. Prometheuspan 22:43, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Userbox Wikibreak

Hadn't you agreed to lay off the userboxes if you were made admin? Perhaps I'm misreading... --D-Day^{(Wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?}) 23:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sam Spade

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sam Spade. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sam Spade/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sam Spade/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 00:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Deleting RfA

Was there a discussion on this topic? If not, I would kindly like to ask that the redirect be restored pending a discussion. Cheers. youngamerican (talk) 16:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Cross-namespace redirects are against Wikipedia policy and break mirrors. The redirect you are looking for is WP:RFA. --Cyde Weys 18:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't. I've been using RfA for quite a while. If such redirects are against policy (I believe you, but could you point me to the article), you might want to take a look at AfD, too. youngamerican (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I dealt with the AfD thing. And no cross-namespace redirects is more of a technical thing than a thing written down in policy. Just ask the devs though. And especially ask anyone who's doing database dumps for mirrors. --Cyde Weys 19:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

gotcha. youngamerican (talk) 19:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Automobile manufacturers (Cydebot)

Looking at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 April 24 it seems that the local usage for UK, AU and NZ seems to have consensus, I just wanted to check with you that the bot is doing what it is supposed to be doing. Ian3055 00:59, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

• Also by the MoS all of the EU categories should be Motor Manufacturers. Ian3055 01:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

As the categories had been renamed I just closed this as the only outstanding one for that day. Maybe it would have been better to tell Cyde and let him close the cfd. If he wants to change it I have no objection. Tim! 16:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Consistency is God. It doesn't make sense to have the same exact kind of category named different things depending on what country it's from. "Automobile manufacturers" is unambiguous. "Motors manufacturers" isn't. Yes, local/regional spelling is preferred in individual articles, but when we're dealing with the site-wide organizational scheme, we need consistency. --Cyde Weys 18:27, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

FYI

Hi Cyde,

Please see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Amin_al-Husayni#new_study

I am planning to add info from this source to the article, including to the 1st paragraph which you mediated succesfully some time ago, so after posting it in talk wanted to give you a heads up. Zeq 11:54, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Why did you delete the Template:User Tyrannosaurus Accident, Template:Triceratops Accident and Template:User Pteranodon Accident? (Iuio 23:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC))

Put that stuff on your userpage, not in Template: space. Templates are for helping to write the encyclopedia. There's a moratorium on the creation of new userboxes anyway. --Cyde Weys 23:35, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

You mean, not to put my new userboxes in the template pages, but exclusively to my userpage only? (Iuio 23:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC))

Exactly. Just put the code directly onto your userpage instead of in templates. Templates were never supposed to be used for these userboxes anyway ... and soon, that's going to be enforced. Best deal with it now so you don't have to deal with it later. --Cyde Weys 23:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

What did you do so that those templates appeared only on my userpage but not on User:Spartacus007's userpage, there, they only appear as red links? Also, I don't see a reason as to why you deleted Template:User Tyrannosaurus Accident, Template:Triceratops Accident and Template:User Pteranodon Accident. (Iuio 23:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC))

One step at a time. Those templates on Spartacus' page are sort of grandfathered in because they were created before the moratorium went into effect. As for the deletion of those three dinosaur userboxes ... please see WP:ENC. It explains everything you need to know. --Cyde Weys 23:48, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Is there a page containing the monatorium? And also could you explain what you mean by "grandfathered in"? So, in the future, are userboxes not going to be templates anymore? (Iuio 23:53, 6 May 2006 (UTC))

The moratorium was listed on Wikipedia:Userboxes somewhere. See Grandfather clause. And yes, userboxes are all going to be subst'ed and removed from Template: space. --Cyde Weys 23:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

There is something I still don't understand. Why is it that on the userbox pages, userboxes made by me are gone but those made by others are still there? Also, how do you make a userbox by subst and can others copy a userbox made in that way? (Iuio 00:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC))

Instead of putting the code for a userbox in a template and then including that template on your userpage, just put the code directly onto your userpage. And I really wish I could delete all of the others out there as well, but that isn't going to happen just yet. In the mean time I'm restricted to getting rid of the new ones as they pop up. --Cyde Weys 00:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to add a userbox to my userpage then convert it to subst? If so, then how? Also, I should just make a userbox as an article instead of a template? How do others copy that if they take a liking to it? (Iuio 00:08, 7 May 2006 (UTC))

Subst just means that instead of linking the template name you're including the actual text of the template on the page. Here's what it looks like: {{welcome}} becomes {{subst:welcome}}, and then when you save that page, the actual contents of the welcome template are substituted in for {{subst:welcome}}. And if anyone likes them and wants to copy them onto their page they can just copy the code. However, I must warn that you shouldn't be here to create "viral" userboxes that you want to see other people using. You should be here to write the encyclopedia. Userpages are a privilege afforded to encyclopedia editors. They aren't a right. --Cyde Weys 00:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

As in "putting the code directly onto my userpage", what do you mean by that? (Iuio 00:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC))

Instead of putting {{User fascist}} on your page, you would just copy the code directly from the template and put it there in its place. Just an example. --Cyde Weys 00:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

So I would just put {{subst: User fascist}} on my page for instance? (Iuio 00:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC))

Yes, assuming {{User fascist}} actually existed, which it doesn't .. it was deleted, and for good reason. --Cyde Weys 00:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The userboxes I created has no "subst:" part, yet they still exist on my userpage after they had been deleted. How can that be? (Iuio 00:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC))

The templates themselves are deleted, the links aren't (the links are what is showing up in red). And you can't substitute a deleted template. --Cyde Weys 01:06, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you please put the codes for the deleted templates on my user page? (Iuio 01:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC))

MFD Notice

An article you recently created, WP:RTFE has been nominated for deletion. The deletion discussion is located at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/WP:RTFE and your input would be welcome. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 01:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

You really don't need to bother with an MfD on this one ... --Cyde Weys 01:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Just closed out the mfd, thanks. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:12, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite block of User:Bestghuran

I have been following the edits of User:Bestghuran for quite a while. Now I haven't followed any of their edits related to zoos or aquariums, I do know that this user has contributed greatly to CFL related articles and I think that an indefinite block is unduely harsh. There does not even appear to be any mention of any wrong doing or attempt to explain to them what they have done wrong on this users talk page. So to block a user indefinately without even trying to warn the user or explain what they did wrong seems completely out of order. Tnikkel 03:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

RfC

You might be interested in the RfC I've just created. Raphael1 12:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Some Help Please

Hello, There is an article that I'm working on which is on my watchlist, it is for "the New Deal (Band)." The following message just came through: 6 May 2006 (diff) (hist) . . m The New Deal (band); 23:23 . . Cydebot (Talk | contribs) (Robot - removing category per deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 April 27.) This is very confusing to me--first, because it doesn't show up on the categories for deletion log for April 27th like it says; and also because this is a band on a major label and fulfills all the requirements for deserving their own article. It also seems rather out-of-the-blue. Could somebody please let me know what's going on? Cheers. Accipio Mitis Frux 16:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The bot was just deleting a category, nothing more. Don't worry about it. --Cyde Weys 18:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

AfD and RfA

Could you please provide a real argument why these redirects should be deleted? Technically, they are no more cross-space than WP:AFD and WP:RFA. They are also still widely used, and deleting them has broken many old pages. I think I should undelete them, but want to hear your argument first why you think this matter should not go through the proper channel at WP:RFD. Regards, Kusma (討論) 17:40, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User Alt Acct Master

Well, now I'm a little confused. Template:User Puppet Master now redirects to User Alt Acct Master and the histories have been merged. I was under the impression that this template was supposed to emulate the old version, including its "whimsicalness," but that it should simply have all references to sockpuppetry removed in compliance with the current rewrite of WP:SOCK. As God of War said here, "userboxes aren't serious - if you want to be serious there is a different puppet template that's not a userbox." Do we maybe need to split these out into two userboxes--one officious and one humorous, perhaps {{User Alt Acct Master}} and {{User Minion Master}}? In any case, the Puppet Master userbox no longer exists, so we'll either need to agree upon the wording of this one or separate them out. It also seems rather strange to me that {{User Alternate Acc}}, which is not a user box, and {{User Alternate Acct}}, which is, have such similar spellings. AmiDaniel (Talk) 20:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The objection was more than just about the specific use of the word "sockpuppeteer". The proposed rewrite still uses keyed words like minions and master. These give the wrong ideas about what it means to have multiple accounts and what the purpose is. If a user wants to write something about minions and masters in their userspace, let them do it. But please, let's keep templatespace the best it can be. --Cyde Weys 20:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

mediation request on cartoon image display

I have requested mediation on the cartoon image display issue.[3] Raphael1 20:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)